BBC News
December 23, 2021
Last Friday, when the 10-year-old Hasher, who was in the UK, found out that the FBI team was coming to his house, he was excited that his mother was coming, but when the team arrived, he started crying and asked a question. Why didn't my mother come?
Here in Pakistan, too, FBI agents at the US embassy are trying to track down a Pakistani-American named Wajiha Swati and are meeting with police officials.
However, no one knows where Wajiha Swati, who came to Islamabad for four days on October 16, disappeared on the same day.
After a month and a half of investigation, police officials told the ninth court hearing on Wajiha's disappearance that a significant development had taken place in the case and that Wajiha Swati's 'ex' husband Rizwan Habib had been arrested and Rizwan Habib Bangash from Hangu has been remanded in police custody for seven days.
Wajiha's family says she went missing on October 16, but an FIR was lodged on October 30.
The FIR was written by Abdullah, the 22-year-old son of their first marriage, who lives in the United States. In the petition, he has accused his stepfather Rizwan Habib of allegedly abducting his mother.
The report has been lodged at Morgah police station in Rawalpindi. Since Abdullah is living abroad, he has filed this report through his lawyer Shabnam Awan.
A writ petition was heard in the court of Justice Shahid Mehmood Abbasi of the Pindi Bench of the Lahore High Court regarding the disappearance of Wajiha. The court reprimanded the police and granted him respite till December 30.
His lawyer, Shabnam Nawaz, said Wajiha's son, Abdullah, had lodged his complaint on the third day of his disappearance with the US embassy and the Prime Minister's Complaints Portal and Police Portal.
How did Wajiha go missing?
According to the FIR, Abdullah said that his mother had come to Pakistan on October 16. He was accompanied on the trip by his 15-year-old nephew Ian.
Wajiha's family says Ian had school holidays, so he told his parents that he wanted to go to Pakistan to visit his grandmother. However, Wajiha left her two sons, Hashir and Asher, with her sister and Ian's mother.
According to Abdullah, on the night of October 22, his mother had a flight back to the UK from Pakistan. "My cousin Ian returned to the UK but my mother did not come."
He says his mother had his cousin's passport and his cousin had to make new travel documents after his mother's alleged abduction.
Abdullah says his mother left him and her brother for a few days in Pakistan to settle property and other disputes with her ex-husband Rizwan Habib.
According to the FIR, Rizwan Habib took 15-year-old Ian and Wajiha Swati with him to his residence in DHA Rawalpindi and allegedly gave them some drugs.
He says that when Ian regained consciousness, Wajiha Swati was not there. House staff reportedly tried to lock the boy in the room but he managed to escape.
"I am convinced that Rizwan Habib kidnapped my mother to take her property and her life," Abdullah claimed in a police report.
He also said that he could exploit my mother in any way, mentally or physically, and accused Rizwan threatened her and her aunt that if they took the matter to the police, they would kill my mother. Will kill
Abdullah said in his petition that his mother had not been contacted on the phone since her disappearance.
In the petition, he also mentions his own father, Dr. Ali Mehdi, who was assassinated in Pakistan in 2014. "We lost our father in a very traumatic event and now we don't want to lose our mother, God bless her," he says.
Why did the police delay in cutting the FIR?
Ghazanfar Ali Shah, SSP Investigation in Rawalpindi Police, told the BBC that "there was no delay in cutting the FIR by the police and it is absolutely unreasonable to say so."
"It simply came to our notice then. We were not immediately notified and as soon as we were notified we lodged an FIR.
He says that the police have registered an FIR against the petitioner, Abdullah Ali, who is residing in the United States, and the police did not even tell him that if he came to Pakistan, the petition would be registered. '
He said that a writ petition has been filed in the High Court in which the police officials are constantly appearing and informing the court.
But the abducted woman's family and lawyer allege that the police were reluctant to register a case.
His lawyer says that when the family contacted him, on the 19th, Abdullah Ali, the son of the abducted Wajiha, had informed the Prime Minister's portal and the US Embassy and CPO's portal.
According to lawyer Shabnam Awan, from the 22nd, he started his own efforts to register an FIR.
Islamabad police stopped us and then said that DHA does not come to Islamabad from the house from which they disappeared. Then we went to Morgah police station. They were not registering a case either. Was not within the limits of our police station.
When the Morgah police station was not registering a case, we went to Nelufar Bakhtiar of the National Commission for the Seats of Women," she said. In the meantime, we have filed a writ of habeas corpus.
Hashim and Hashir live in the house of Maqsood Ahmed, brother-in-law of Wajiha in UK. He claimed that when Wajiha went missing from Rizwan Habib's residence on the 16th and his 15-year-old son Ian barely got out of the house, arrangements were made to repatriate the child immediately.
Maqsood Ahmed says that Wajiha's sister Amara, who lives in Pakistan, called Rizwan and told him that he had gone out with Wajiha and that he would return late. It was Amara who took Ian to his grandmother's house from where arrangements were made for his return.
Who is Wajiha Swati?
Wajiha Swati, 46, hails from Abbottabad, Pakistan. Although she had lived in the United States for many years and this time came to Pakistan for only four days. They have three sons, an older son who is 22 years old and currently in the United States, while two sons, aged 15 and 10, are temporarily residing in their aunt's home in the United Kingdom.
Wajiha's lawyer Shabnam Awan says the abductees used to come to Pakistan almost every year. Her first husband, a heart specialist, was killed in Pakistan in 2014 in an alleged targeted killing.
Lawyer Shabnam Awan said that Wajiha also runs her husband's surgical instrument business and used to invest in the property sector.He had a Masters in Business Administration.
What was the quarrel between Wajiha and Rizwan?
According to Shabnam Awan, Wajiha first met Rizwan as a broker in the UAE.
Wajiha's family says they did not know at first what the couple was arguing about because they had married of their own free will and since then they have had little contact with the family.
According to Wajiha's brother-in-law Maqsood Ahmed, Wajiha came to visit us in England for a few days after seven years and then a few days later she told us that Rizwan had taken her home with her money and told her that three months later I will name you, but then I did not name the house.
We were told by Wajiha that Rizwan had registered the vehicles bought with his money and allegedly tried to kill him in Hangu in September 2020 by giving him some medicine," he said.
According to family documents, the abductee was divorced from her second husband, Rizwan, but Rizwan claims that she is still his wife.
He said that it was our fault that we trusted Rizwan and sent Wajiha to Pakistan.
According to Wajiha's brother-in-law Maqsood Ahmed, the plan was that Wajiha's brother would pick him up from the airport but he was not in the city that day.
He says that Rizwan told him that he would cook it. He went to the airport and told Wajiha that he would go to your brother's house later. The registrar's office has come to get the signature first.
What are the complications in the case?
Two months after the disappearance, the FBI is investigating the case, which appears to be a landmark case.
SSP Investigation Ghazanfar said, "This is definitely a difficult case in this regard as there was no direct evidence against the main accused." For example, there are no eyewitnesses who can tell that the woman was abducted by the accused.
"It is important to understand in the investigation that there is no eyewitness. If he had, we would have known when the incident took place and we would have gathered evidence and helped in the investigation," he said.
According to SSP Ghazanfar, the second important point is that the sooner the investigation is reported to the police, the better for the police to gather evidence from the scene.
While it is not that the case cannot be traced, I can say that if an FIR had been lodged immediately after the incident, the police would have recovered the abductee by now," he said.
Wajiha's lawyer also complained that the police had released Mazm for a long time but the police said that since the FIR was registered, Rizwan Habib has been called for questioning on a daily basis. '
Officials say the main suspect was repeatedly called on the basis of social media accounts, addresses, phone numbers, and CCTV footage that could have been obtained, not that the accused had been released.
Asked why the police delayed his arrest when a petition was filed against Rizwan Habib by the woman's family in the case, SSP Investigation Ghazanfar Ali Shah said: He was questioned but the high courts have already ordered that no accused be arrested unless there is solid evidence against him.
Asked about the evidence, SSP Investigation said, "It is not yet clear what evidence we have on the basis of which we arrested Rizwan." They have taken the house as a crime scene and gathered evidence from there.
Ghazanfar Ali Shah says that he (Rizwan Habib) was the main accused from the beginning, so during that time we checked what statements he made that day. We cross-checked them and arrested them as part of an ongoing investigation.
The US embassy wants to keep a close eye on the investigation into Wajiha's recovery, and Wajiha's family is hopeful that information about him will be available soon after a response from higher authorities.
Police officials said that the name of the accused named in the case was put on ECL while another accused has already obtained pre-arrest bail.
